We’re all trapped by our pasts, by grief or anger at the decisions made by the generations that came before us.   In Hangashore, Jack and Vera are each trapped by some variation of both. Vera (Hera Hilmar) is a young woman from Iceland, drawn to Newfoundland by the disappearance of her father, a fisherman who vanished off the coast, near an island she cannot stop dreaming about.  Jack (James Frecheville) has inherited his father’s fishing boat and all the bills that come with it. There are also no fish around, leaving Jack reduced to hunting seals; grim and grisly work he does not enjoy. 

Jack and Vera are both trapped in the small town they land in, and naturally end up drawn to one another as a pair of vaguely kindred spirits, each looking for something to stabilize them if only for a short time.  Both Hilmar and Frecheville rise to the occasion, delivering performances with significant inner depth.  Each has something behind their eyes, something that only softens in each other’s company, but never goes away entirely. 

With this setup, director Justin Oakey has created a moody, atmospheric film about two lonely souls, and with James Klopko, he captures the freezing cold of the Atlantic winter in a very real, deeply felt way. Whether it’s the wind or the water, the chill in the air and on each character is palpable in every scene, which offers a nice juxtaposition to both the more tender moments between Jack and Vera and the explosive, angry moments with Jack’s shipmate Donovan (Stephen Oates).  

Not satisfied to only stay in one genre, though, the film’s big swing comes in the third act when Jack takes the boat out and gets lost in an ethereal, forboding fog.  This last section of the film asks more of the audience than one might expect, but the intersection of the characters and stories and the questions raised about each, will leave audience members with a lot to think about as well. 

Hangashore is a big swing. The big third-act choices won’t work for everyone, but for those of us for whom it does, it works like gangbusters.

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